Tuesday, November 30, 2010

For those of you who just discovered this blog, I have one of the largest collections of Doctor Strange comics and memorabilia in the world and from time to time feature items from my collection here. These items are housed in a room I call the Sanctum Sanctorum West. Today's post features the poster racks on the Eastern wall. To see the original art pieces in the collection up close, CLICK HERE.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

I've been making my own 3D lenticulars since 2002. This is a recent one I made called "Syd Creeper". It's a digital collage done in late 2009. If you click the image below, you'll see an animated simulation of what the piece looks like in real life:

Back in 1986-87, I would hang out in my art class at Windward High School in the afternoons when school let out and work on copying photos of supermodels into my sketchbook. I used to love drawing Paulina Porizkova. She was my favorite. Not sure if the image below is her, but this is definitely one of my efforts from that period.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Robert Williams is the founding father of Lowbrow Art, a term that has been used to describe my work as well. Being a big fan of his paintings since the early 90's, it was an honor to meet the man on a number of occasions. At a gallery opening back in 1999, I ran into him wearing a bright red jacket. Williams looked at me and said "Howard, I love that jacket. Where did you get it? I've been looking all over the place for one like that!" I told him I found it at a suit shop Hollywood and made him a deal: I'd go pick another one up for him and bring it by his house and art studio in the next few days. He can pay me for it then. We agreed and I got his address. When I went to get the jacket, I wondered... Would he do an exchange for a piece of original art? I was almost embarrassed to ask, but figured I had to. Surprisingly, Mr. Williams agreed, and that's how I got the original sketch for the 1997 painting "The Mexican Goat Sucker"! I recently went to a Robert Williams tribute show at Barnsdale Art Park in Los Feliz and wore my red jacket. Williams was there, saw me, and once again commented: "That's a nice red jacket you got there!" I told him: "I know! I got you one just like it about 10 years ago!" He whispered to me: "Yeah, but it looks like mine is in better shape!"

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

In honor of the publication of the first softcover edition of the Doctor Strange Marvel Masterworks Vol. 1 coming out today, I figure I would feature a link to my Custom Strange Tales covers. The immortal Steve Ditko (co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Stan Lee) did not have his work gracing the covers of any of the issues in the legendary run he had on that title... except for issue #146, the last one he did. OK, maybe he had some floating heads or half a cover here and there, but mostly Ditko's Doctor Strange gave up the cover space for Nick Fury or The Human Torch. This inspired me to re-create vintage Strange Tales comic covers WITH Dr. Strange on the cover from Ditko's Dr. Strange interior art (and a few covers John Byrne did back in the 80's). Then I actually attached my replica covers to low grade copies of the original comic books. Click below to see the results:

This rare Tron poster came free in the Los Angeles Times the weekend the movie came out back in 1982. I remember taking it to Tower Records in Westwood, CA. to get it signed by one of the guys who worked on special effects for the movie, Glenn Campbell (not the rock star). He wrote: "Howie, don't de-rezz" in the yellow area in the bottom left corner... Ironically, that signature has all but de-rezzed in this JPEG. Why Tower Records had the animation compositing camera guy signing autographs and not one of the stars of the film there is a mystery that remains with me to this day...

Monday, November 22, 2010

Back in 1986 I was really into Love and Rockets comics. I went to meet the Hernandez Brothers, Gilbert and Jaime, down at a comic book store on Hollywood Blvd that is long gone. I somehow convinced them to do a sketch with a 15 year old me posing with their characters Maggie and Luba. Here's the results:

A rare (and very narrow) vintage poster for the great John Boorman film "Point Blank", starring Lee Marvin as a film noir unstoppable killer out for revenge to the backdrop of a beatnik psychedelic mid-60's Los Angeles. The movie is based on the Richard Stark book "The Hunter", and Archie Bunker (Carol O'Connor) and Dean Wormer (John Vernon) are in it, as is a very sexy Angie Dickinson. Angie did 2 other movies with Lee Marvin (Death Hunt and The Killers), and he gets it on with her in all 3 of them! This movie was re-made as the Mel Gibson movie "Ransom", and has been recently adapted into a comic book by Darwyn Cooke. The character Lee Marvin portrays inspired me to make a customized action figure, which I blogged about a while back. The poster measures 13 and a half inches by 34 inches and I've never run across another one in this size:

Sunday, November 21, 2010

The online urban dictionary definitions of the word broof are wrong. All of them are Epic Fails. Here is the absolute 100% certified definition, noted by Broofmasters the world over...

BROOF - (BAh-REEE-ouf) - Interjection, verb (used without object), noun
Used as an exclamation of joy, exultation, appreciation, encouragement, or in reference to something awesome happening: I just won a free sandwich! Broof!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

"Stranger In A Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein
This was an excellent book that I had never read but was always told that I had to read. Since the local library had it on CD, I couldn't pass up listening to it this weekend as I worked on turning The Picture Of Everything into a 3D lenticular. A beautiful story that can be as applicable today as it was back in the early 60's. I can definitely see how this perpetuated some of the free love hippie philosophy, and shudder to think about how many wannabe Valentine Michael Smiths this book has spawned since then. Not that I don't think the message presented here was profound, but just thinking about how many orgies were spawned by people wanting to be someone's "water brother" is not easy to grok.

Grok... I FINALLY Grok where this cultural reference comes from. I Smurf it as well.

As a messiah parable, it's one of the best I've read. Very thoughtful and forward thinking. Not much seemed dated in the nearly 50 years since its publication. Maybe the mention of a typewriter, but something tells me that even in 2010, Jubal Harshaw would probably insist that one of his secretaries writes on one. I liked Harshaw as a character and can now see he was the inspiration for Hagbard Celine.

The Sandman was a DC/Vertigo comic book that ran for 75 issues. It was written by Neil Gaiman and featured personifications of Dream, Death, Delerium (formerly Delight), Despair, Destiny, Desire and Destruction. These 7 "Endless" were siblings and the oldest things that exist in the universe. It's a fantastic series, and rather than tracking down the original comic books, I decided to collect something much rarer: the hardcover first printings of the graphic novels. These books are much harder to track down than the individual issues, especially the Seasons of Mist one and the 2 Death miniseries hardcovers. Included with the Sandman books are a few more softcover trades (all first printings) which were never released as hardcover editions. These include other books either by Neil Gaiman or within the Sandman mythos: